Who Are the People's Lobbyists?
Here's another gloss on the corrupting power of money from large corporations, in this instance health-care insurance companies — not to mention the silly, antidemocratic notion of "corporate personhood" that recognizes campaign "contributions" from such corporations as political "speech" protected by the First Amendment.
First, note the observation the the health insurance and HMO corporations spend $700,000 per day lobbying congress. How many uninsured families could be covered for $700,000 per day? (By the end of a year, about 20,000 at current premiums.)
Keeping in mind that the House of Representatives has 435 members and the Senate has 100 (total: 535):
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the insurance interests have 875 registered lobbyists representing its concerns in Washington D.C., and HMOs have 920 registered lobbyists. The total figure for 2009, 1,795, is slightly fewer than 2,000 lobbyists the industries employed in 2008. It is possible that late hires during the important fall months will push 2009 figures past the 2008 record.
["Insurance and HMO Industries Spend Nearly $700,000 A Day to Kill Health Care Reform Measures", Public Campaign Action Fund, 15 September 2009.]
In: All, Current Events, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 17 September 2009 at 20.32
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It's all about power and money, not service. They are in business, not service
on Thursday, 17 September 2009 at 21.30
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I used to think we should return to a congress of unpaid volunteers. I haven't thought about it for awhile, but it still might be a good idea, although there seems to be no good way to avoid the corruption of money. Not that I wouldn't mind being corrupted myself, just a little.